A Declaration for Pickaway County

I have tried to stay away from politics. There are no clear cut solutions or value judgments. Riding the balance between what different people need combined with maintaining wants verses needs is more than any one person should be able to handle. That's part of why we have government. The people who we elect, are the people who have told us they want to dedicate their lives towards maintaining that balance on our behalf.

Obviously this doesn't always work. Often simple humanity gets in the way, be it physical limitations, or the emotional baggage all people carry. Sometimes the appropriate motivation is not present. Personally, I believe it is a lack of participation by "my fellow Americans".

Having attempted to avoid political issues myself, I am also to blame. I went through the Government and Economy classes in school. I may not have aced them, but I did exceptionally well, even though I read romance novels during most classes, but even then, I could explain "checks and balances" without even looking up. Maybe that lack of effort for definition, made me grow up thinking I had enough understanding of the American government. I still have a greater understanding of the fundamentals then most people I know, but that has a great deal to do with my constant teaching; my generation may have a lack of understanding, but our future generations will not, if I can help it.

The problem is, if we don't have a better understanding now, the will be nothing for future generations to understand. So we need to make that extra effort, and not only when the government upsets us.

That is where this article started. The Pickaway Count Commissioners released someone form their job without suitable explanation. I'm talking about the kind of someone who did their work even from home and without pay. It seems to most people that this would be the kind of person anyone would want to have working for them, especially if they have never given cause to complain.

It is difficult to fight a government, even when you are talking about a small town group of three. It seems even worse when you discover that, not only do the individuals respond to reasonable argument and mass public pressure, there is no established way to remove those Commissioners.

There was no established way to form the United States either.

I thought about making this piece about the Commissioner's un-founded and anti-community decision, but my goal is not to drag individuals through the muck in my self-serving purpose. I even considered accessing information from higher courts; we do have a governmental system through which we can seek retribution for even imagined slights. How many times have you heard someone sue because of "wrongful termination". I know the people involved in this particular incident is too good an individual to become part of the drain on the over-extended resources of the county she has served so well. Besides, this is greater than one person.

This is about individuals pulling together for the greater good of the community. People who don't get involved, have spoken up. The generation of doers is evolving. Before we get carried away though, we need to understand what, exactly we are. We can't just make our environment what we, as individuals want it to be. We have to stand together on some kind of solid and agreed upon foundation.

Some people might say that's what the Constitution is. I concede that it is a (more or less) agreed upon set of guidelines by which we live. Like all people, it is every changing to accommodate the newly discovered needs of it's constitutes. As necessary as it is to have this kind of adaptability built in to a government of fluctuating people, there is still required something base that doe not ever change.

We call it the Declaration of Independence. Every time I get upset about governmental issues, I go back to the Declaration. This was more than just a letter from the colonists to King George with a laundry list of grievances. The people who wrote the Declaration were loyal British subjects. Their first choice was not succession, but to force their government to take the needs of the colonists into consideration. The American Declaration of Independence is the result of a government ignoring the needs of its people.

Rather like the Pickaway County Commissioners.

I have heard that there is really nothing that can be done about specific government officials who have not done the job they have been elected to perform. The Colonists thought there was nothing to be done about a government who puts it's own interests before the needs of its people. It only took a small group to stand up, stand out, and build this something new that we still believe in.

Take a close look at the American Declaration of Independence, remembering that your elected officials have publicly agreed on it's principles. We talk a great deal about the rights of an individual as stated in the Declaration, but it also contains the responsibilities of our government, as well as what to do when they fail in their duty. "

It does not matter how long an elected official has left to their term. It does not matter if there are established guidelines in the process of impeachment of a lesser politician. This is OUR government, from the President of the United States, to the County Dog Warden. We have the right to see this government run with our interests in mind as well as those of our neighbor. We will not always agree on every detail, but we must agree that those individuals in positions of power are working with the interest of the community they serve as their priority, and not something self serving. I have seen girls at the tender age of seventeen put their lives on hold for the duty they have been elected to serve. I have seen those doing the actual work put their personal lives aside to serve the good of their community. Unfortunately I have also seen elders take advantage of their positions of authority without explanation of consideration to the consequences.

It is time to take the Declaration seriously.